Apartment Rental News Weekly Roundup

November 17th, 2009 by Matt DiChiara| Posted in Weekly News Update | No Comments »

Don’t Tread on Me

An apartment owner in Oregon has notified residents who have an American flag on their vehicles or apartments must take them down because the flags may be offensive to some people. After residents became upset with the censorship, the property managers decided to rescind the regulation, realizing that the heavy handed approach was going to cause way more problems than avoid.

Especially when the thing banned, (the flag in this case) would normally be used as the hyperbolic extrapolation in a counterargument against some kind of relatively reasonable prohibition. (“You can’t ban guns and bikinis in the workplace! That’s like banning… the American flag!) [KATU Local News]

Smoke-Free Apartments on the Rise

There have been a few cities and municipalities here in California that have either passed legislation or taken judicial action to ban smoking in apartments or mediate disputes between non smoking and smoking neighbors, and now a string of apartments are making headlines on the east coast. Individual apartments in Philadelphia, New York and Boston have all garnered press attention for smoking prohibitions. (bitterness over the World Series and smoker profiling is noted in Mr. Keith’s post) [PR Newswire, John A. Keith Real Estate]

Congress Looks to Update Senior Housing Program

Last month the United States Senate held a hearing on Senate bill 118, a bill that would make it easier to administrate and fund the affordable senior housing properties that take advantage of HUD’s Section 202 program. Facts furnished to the Senate panel include that around 300,000 seniors live in 6,000 of the Section 202 apartments nationwide and though demand is already high, it continues to rise. When an apartment becomes available 10 seniors apply for the vacancy. By 2020, it is estimated that 730,000 additional units will be needed to fit all those baby boomers. [Senior Spectrum]

HUD’s 202 program helps fund the construction and administration of apartment communities that provide services that many elderly American rely on, such as transportation, cooking, medical facilities and cleaning. HUD will provide qualified properties with cash advances to sponsors, which do not have to be repaid as long as the project serves very low-income people for 40 years. In a row. HUD will also pay all approved costs that rents do not cover. [U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development]